The
evening started off with Lancashire based act ‘Duke St. Workshop’, who were
really good and quite melodic and seeing an electronic Simmons drumkit on stage
was a bonus. The duos performance would have benefited from some decent
lighting but was nonetheless quite enjoyable.

Only
15 minutes later one man project ‘Le Cliché’ was on and their videoscreen-based
show was highly energetic and interesting and I was wondering if Le Cliché really
acquired all rights to the many ads that were featured during the performance.

That thought may be beside the point though. While not all tracks were
different enough for my spoiled ears they were still all good and well put
together, too.

DJ
and synthpop legend Rusty Egan supported by gifted vocalist Eric Stein rocked
the house only minutes after Le Cliché had finished his set.

The
set featured some great Depeche Mode and Yazoo classics but consisted mainly of
tracks from Rusty’s album: ‘Welcome to the dancefloor’, which sounded amazing.

Ex
– Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flur looked very well for someone of the age of 69
as he started his DJ set sandwiched between two Egan sets.

The
‘Musik Soldat’ (Music Soldier) slides featured mostly old and likely private
stills from Flur’s time in Kraftwerk.

I
would have loved to see Wolfgang play some drums and perhaps add a live
synthesist to his set as watching ‘an old guy’ playing some tunes off two
laptops, even if some of the tracks were from his latest album ‘Eloquence’, is
really boring and not all that interesting.

He
brought his own video filming woman to the gig who took it upon herself to tell
fans off for using their own phones for filming a bit of their hero – who the
fu** did she think she is?

This gig happened in a rather small room in the
bowels of a heavy metal pub – a long way off from venues Fluer’s contemporaries
such as OMD or The Human League are playing and it isn’t as if the recordings
of a DJ set from someone who’d left the world’s best known electronic music
band in the late 1980s really sell any less simply because some fans upload
some shaky footage onto youtube.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Sometimes the stars
align and magic happens. After failing to secure one of only 300 tickets for a
very special event, I had given up on attending a special Erasure celebration
with ‘Fans only’, with the band in attendance, a meet & greet in person, a
q&a with my heroes, an acoustic set that included a brand-new track from
the new Erasure album that’s due to be released in May 2017.

Just mere hours before
the event I had logged on to one of the many Erasure related facebook pages and
saw a fan posting that he had arrived in Birmingham and was let down by a
fellow Erasure fan and that he still had a spare ticket that he would sell for
face value.

I couldn’t believe my
luck as I met him the next morning, bought the ticket and was now one of only
300 very happy and privileged fans.

This was an amazing day
with the best people anyone could ever hope to meet. Kind, open hearted,
amazing fellow fans who were just as excited to be at the ‘From Moscow to Mars’
party that commemorated 31 years of Erasure and a new boxset out later this
month, consisting of 13 discs in total and called ‘From Moscow to Mars’, named
after a line in the Erasure track ‘Star’.

I was in the first group
to go and meet Vince & Andy in person and to have a professional picture
taken for a mere £2 extra. Unlike the year before when I cried as I met Andy
Bell in person, I was a bit more composed this time around but meeting Vince
Clarke was the biggest thing that ever happened to me for I hold him solely
responsible for my becoming a musician.

In fact, I presented my
last two albums to Vince & Andy as a ‘thank you’ (or maybe as punishment,
lol), had a card signed and my picture taken with my absolute heroes.

When Vince then said: ‘Enjoy
the party’ and shook my hand again I was in 7th heaven where I
remained for the day and perhaps the foreseeable future.

(Usually) never-smiling
Vince was smiling with his fans and even told a joke on stage and we were all
treated like family. The other awesome guy that I owe my thanks to is Richard
who runs the Erasure website, newsletter, organised stuff pertaining to this
event etc. – he is just as loved by the fans as Erasure themselves – and rightly
so.

Of course Neil Francis
was there, too and Shelter as well as Destination who all performed at last
year’s ’30 years of Erasure’ party. This time they showed up as ‘regular’ fans,
which is what they are of course. Was just awesome to be among all those
mega-talented people.